Tag Archives: Vicki Garvey

The Art of Forming Faithful People: Forma 2015

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Unknown-3I spent the last few days of January in Houston, Texas attending Forma‘s 18th Annual Conference. It was a jam-packed few days filled with excellent workshops, outstanding speakers, and (most importantly for me) a chance to network and learn from colleagues from across the United States (and beyond) about new ideas, joys, and struggles in the world of lifelong Christian formation in the Episcopal Church.

There have been several Forma members who have shared their perspective of the event that you can read, including Kyle Oliver of the Center for the Ministry of Teaching at Virginia Seminary who wrote about keynoter Brene Brown’s keynote. For those of you who are not familiar with Dr. Brown, it’s best to view her TED Talk regarding vulnerability. The best summary I can give of her amazing talk was what I put out on Twitter during the presentation (@rowsofsharonp). All her quotes:

  • I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for Christian formation.
  • If you want to form people with god you need to inspire them
  • fear + anxiety + shame = scarcity
  • The casualty of fear and scarcity is faith
  • We can be a place that doesn’t offer certainty but that offers love
  • Leading from scarcity moves people away.
  • How many of you have a gratitude practice?
  • how many of you incorporate gratitude practices into your ministry?
  • Knowledge is only rumor until you live it in your bones
  • Children need a place of belonging that is not school
  • It is our job – formation folk – is to accept ppl for who they are and offer a space to belong
  • I’ve never been asked to choose intellect over faith in the Episcopal Church
  • Shame only works when you feel you’re alone. Embrace empathy.
  • Our kids are desperate for boundaries.
  • Difference between entitlement and privilege is gratitude
  • Hopelessness + shame = violence. We need to cultivate hope and offer an alternative.

Continue reading The Art of Forming Faithful People: Forma 2015 →

Passing on Faith

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Words of Wisdom for Passing on the Christian Faith

For many churches, this Sunday is the beginning of a new program year. Children and families return to church as Church School, youth group, and other formation activities start up. Some call this new beginning, “Kick Off Sunday” (after all it’s football season), or “Rally Day” (never really understood what racing had to do with it) or “Homecoming Sunday” (for those who seem to disappear during the summer).

As I prepare to lead some teacher trainings this fall, I recall the wisdom of Christian educators from our past and present.

What is the true idea of Christian education? That the child is to grow up a Christian, and never to know her/him self as being otherwise. In other words, the aim, effort and expectation should be, not as is commonly assumed, that the child is to grow up in sin, to be converted after he/she comes to a mature age; but that he/she is open on the world as one that is spiritually renewed, not remember the time when he/she went through a technical experience, but seeming rather to have loved what is good for her/his earlier years. Horace Bushnell, 19th C educator and theologian

Children will never have faith unless there is a community of faith for them to live in and be influenced by. The Rev. Dr. John Westerhoff III, Episcopal priest and educator (1976)

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head. C. S. Lewis

If you ask almost any adult about the impact of church school on his or her growth, he or she will not tell you about books or curriculum or Bible stories or anything like that. The central memory is of the teacher, learning is meeting. Walter Brueggemman, theologian (1987)

According to Genesis, we were each created in the image and likeness of God. The ultimate goal of all Christian Formation is to assist people of all ages to realize and act on who they were created to be: the living and utterly unique images of God in this world. Vicki Garvey (2006)

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. John Steinbeck

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Prayers for all who teach and all who learn as we recommit to passing on the faith from generation to generation.